X's and O's Preview: How Neal Brown's Mountaineers Stress Opponents
This is part three of my Baylor-WVU preview covering the Mountaineer schemes that Baylor will face. Parts one and two covered their roster and stats.
Brown’s Mountaineers Winning With A Physical Air Raid and A New Defensive Playcaller
Neal Brown is in year six at WVU and has the Mountaineers poised for a fourth bowl game during that tenure after walking into a mostly depleted roster back in 2019; he has never fallen more than one game short of a bowl at WVU. He had an impressive 35-16 record at Troy before coming to Morgantown, where he upset LSU and Nebraska on the road and almost did it to an eventual national champion at Clemson. WVU isn’t riding quite as high as 2023, but they successfully bounced back from the disappointment of 2022, managed some losses in the portal and developed their own guys to do it well.
Defense
WVU’s defense has struggled this year, and as a result, they moved on from defensive coordinator Jordan Lesley and promoted Jeff Koonz from within. The change isn’t necessarily schematic, as Koonz and Brown have made a point of mentioning. It appears to be more about executing what they already do quicker, more consistently and with better assignment discipline. If that’s the true root cause of the issues, I would expect a better outcome for their defense going forward, even with basically the same scheme.
“We’ve got to get lined up as fast as possible. We’ve got to make sure that all 11 guys on the field understand what the call is, how to execute the call, and what success they should expect after that call. And I say the confidence that comes with understanding exactly what we’re trying to accomplish with each and every single call that is made is paramount right now,” - Jeff Koonz
“What we can’t do is give the offense the answers to the test. We have to do a better job of disguising whether it is our movements up front or our coverages in the secondary.” - Neal Brown
The defense at WVU is a 3-4 scheme with one OLB as a hybrid DE/LB and one is effectively a fifth defensive back which WVU calls SPEAR.
They typically line up like the above picture but can also move the rush linebacker around for different looks to present issues for the offense.
In coverage, they love to play zone while attempting to move, blitz and disrupt up front. They use a fair amount of ‘Cover 3’ and ‘Quarters’ variations in their zones but are willing to be aggressive. I’ve seen them blitz the boundary corner more than I expected to see. They don’t use a ton of man-to-man coverage and, in recent weeks, have focused more on living to fight another down and bending without breaking. They take pretty calculated risks and draw up pressures pretty well.
They’ll also bring creeper pressures like Dave Aranda does as well. One unique twist I see more from them than many teams BU faces is they’ll move their safety across the formation or up close to get into a less orthodox look. Here, they bring the SPEAR on a blitz and, by dropping the BANDIT to the flat and rotating the Corner and CAT safety to the SPEAR’s side, are able to get into a relatively sturdy Cover 2 while getting the rush matchup they want.
That boundary safety often lines up like a free hitter behind the linebackers over the middle, where he can be involved in the run fit, help in coverage to the field (like we saw in the creeper video), or possibly roll back to the boundary. In order to facilitate pushing him to the wide side of the field, they tend to ask their boundary corner to play off coverage almost like a safety at times and leave the flat to the lbs. This has led to teams using RPOs like this one on them or just attacking that boundary flat player in the passing game.
This is a defense that isn’t too unorthodox but is aggressive and is just different enough to make an offense a bit uncomfortable.
Offense
WVU is an Air Raid-style offense. Neal Brown was Tommy Tubberville’s OC at Texas Tech and called plays at both UK and Troy before becoming the head man at Troy and WVU. In the offseason, they lost OC Graham Harrell, another Air Raid guy, and promoted Chad Scott from within to their OC spot.
They base out of 11 or 12 personnel but will mix up personnel depending on the game plan. Like many air raid squads, WVU will use Air Raid staples like mesh, bash, four verticals and other concepts show up. However, they do run a lot of RPO concepts as well, and a good example is this play where they packaged a post route from the inside slot receiver with a downhill zone run inside.
This offense has made good use of formations and pre-snap motion to get an advantage and does so here.
It won their game against KU this year. KU had a coverage call for a bunch set where the outside guy takes the first outside breaking route, the deep guy gets the first deep route, etc., but then quickly motioned, and KU had one guy playing coverage and the other checking to coverage. The game-winning touchdown followed.
On the ground, they do a good job with both zone schemes and gap schemes like GT counter and involve the QB in them as well. They are very willing to run the QB when they have one. Garrett Greene is like a punt returner carrying the ball and is very elusive but they have successfully leveraged the less athletic Nicco Marchiol in this capacity as well.
However, they’ll also have designed runs where he’s the primary ball carrier and not only in scenarios where they take the RB away. Here they run GT counter for Greene and he scores while the RB is the threat moving away from the blocked play.
They also use the QB power toss read, which several teams have run over the last decade, as well as a frontside power read that gives more distance between the running threats.
This offense is an Air Raid but they don’t want to drop back 60 times. They’ll do it some but they have mixed in much more deep shots off play action and often keep extra guys in to provide blocking for the QB to get the deep ball off like this play that combines motion and a maximum protection call.
Brown also does a good job building play-action concepts off the WR sweeps he’ll occasionally threaten the defense with on QB power reads. Here, they hit the RB after it looks like he’s blocking for the WR, and they pull a guard to sell the QB power fake.
This offense is not the pass-happy or balanced Air Raid you’ve come to expect. It’s much more of a ball-control offense with a great line and a great tailback duo.
Final Questions
Sorsby's panic lateral and pick-six are the only reason that WVU won that game last week. Is there any indication that Sawyer might make similar mistakes under pressure that would lead them to get easy turnovers against us?
Sawyer Robertson makes a couple of plays like that per game that don’t always bite him, but they also make him incredibly hard to defend. I don’t see it happening again for them, as they were pretty terrible at forcing turnovers this year before last week. I think BU will protect the ball well enough.
How worried are you about WVU's offensive scheme generating BU secondary busts the way TCU did two weeks ago?
Obviously, it’s a concern. You had several plays where NOBODY was in a position to cover someone. I do think the bye week will help either get more proficient at their assignments or tell Aranda where he needs to simplify things for his guys. I wouldn’t have this confidence on a typical game week. The play where the deep middle safety abandoned the post is easy fixes that are likely already made.
Do you expect Greene to play, and are there major differences between the two quarterbacks who could play? Is one more of a runner than a passer? Thanks again. Keep up the great work.
As mentioned above, Greene is more dangerous as a runner and in terms of extending plays for big throws. However, he gets into trouble by forcing the ball and turning it over.
Marchiol protects it better but is less dynamic while still being a capable runner and better passer than Greene. However, he gets sacked a lot more than Greene, which kills drives and generally doesn’t move the offense as well.
Prediction?
Baylor’s offense has feasted on defenses that play similar coverages to WVU's, and I don’t see that changing this week. Baylor’s defense played about as badly in coverage as it could against TCU and has had two weeks to get better for a less efficient passing game. WVU’s offense provides a challenge, but Greene's turnovers will let Baylor clinch bowl eligibility before WVU does in a shootout.
Baylor: 34
West Virginia: 30
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